Julie of the Wolves

by Jean Craighead George

  When her outer garments were put away she took off the bright-red tights her mother-in-law had bought for her at the American store in Barrow. Walking to the pond, she rinsed them and laid them in the sun. The cool air struck her naked body. She shivered and was glad that she had done one thing right—she had worn her winter clothes, not her light summer kuspuck, the woman’s dress.

  The wind gusted; Miyax scrambled through the low door and slid into her sleeping skin. The silken softness of the rabbit fur embraced her and she pulled the hood around her face so that only her nose was exposed. The fur captured her warm breath, held it against her face, and she became her own radiant stove. In this cozy micro-world she forgot her hunger and recalled what she already knew about wolves so that she could put it together with what she had observed.

  Wolves are shy, Kapugen had said, and they desert their dens if discovered by man; yet this pack had not. Did Amaroq not know she was human? Perhaps not; she had never walked in his presence, the two-legged signal of “man” to wild animals. On the other hand, he must know. Kapugen had said that with one sniff a wolf knew if you were male or female, adult or child, if you were hunting or not hunting—even if you were happy or sad. She concluded that Amaroq tolerated her because she was young, had no gun, and was sad—a lost child.

  She next considered Nails. Who was he? Amaroq’s dependable friend, that was true, yet she suspected he was even more than that—a spiritual father of the pups. Nails took orders from Amaroq, but stayed close to Silver and the little wolves. He was father when their real father was busy. He was Amaroq’s serious partner. But Jello? Who was he? Where had he come from? Was he a pup of a previous year? Or had he joined the pack just as she had, by soliciting Amaroq for membership in his tribe? There was much to learn about her family.

  Miyax did not know how long she slept, for midnight was almost as bright as noon and it was difficult to judge the passing of time. It did not matter, however; time in the Arctic was the rhythm of life. The wolf pups were barking their excited yipoo that rang out the hour of the end of the hunt. The pack was coming home. With visions of caribou stew in her head, she got out of her sleeping skin and reached for her clothes.

  The puppies may not have been eating, but certainly Amaroq would have to bring Jello some food. He had been home all night. Stepping into the sunlight, she put on her tights, danced a moment, and then pulled on her furs. Leaning over the pond, she saw in the glassy water the hollows of her cheeks. She was pleased, for she looked almost like the gussak girls in the magazines and movies—thin and gaunt, not moon-faced like an Eskimo. Her hair! She leaned closer to the tundra looking glass. Her hair was a mess. Pressing it into place with her hands, she wished she had taken Daniel’s wedding brush and comb with her. They lay unused in the corner of a table drawer in the house at Barrow.

  Quickly she climbed the frost heave, lay down, and looked at the wolves. There was no meat to be seen. The three hunters were stretched out on their sides, their bellies extended with food. Jello was gone. Of course, she said to herself, he had been relieved of his duties and had backtracked the hunters to the kill. She winced, for she had been so certain that today she would eat. So I won’t, she said to herself, and that’s that.

  Miyax knew when to stop dreaming and be practical. She slid down the heave, brushed off her parka, and faced the tundra. The plants around the pond had edible seeds, as did all of the many grasses. There were thousands of crane fly and mosquito larvae in the water, and the wildflowers were filling if not very nourishing. But they were all small and took time to gather. She looked around for something bigger.

  Her black eyes were alert as several Lapland longspurs darted overhead. They might still have young in their nests. Staying on one side of the heave, so the wolves would not see her two-leggedness, she skipped into the grass. The birds vanished. Their dark pointed wings were erased from the sky as if they had sensed her deadly purpose. Miyax crouched down. Kapugen had taught her how to hunt birds by sitting still and being patient. She crossed her feet and blended into the plants, still as a stone.

  Presently a grass blade trembled and Miyax saw a young bird fluttering its wings as it begged to be fed. A brown lark-like parent winged down and stuffed its open beak. Another youngster begged and the parent flew to it. Unfortunately, the second little bird was so far from the first that Miyax knew they were out of the nest and impossible to catch. She shifted her attention to the snow buntings.

  A movement in the sky above the horizon caught her attention, and she recognized the pointed tail and black head of a jaeger. She knew this bird well, for it hunted the shore and tundra of Nunivak Island. A bold sea bird, it resembled its close relative the gull, but was not a fisher. The jaeger preyed upon lemmings, small birds, and occasionally carrion. Miyax wondered what prey it was hunting. Three more jaegers joined the first, circled close together as if over a target, then dropped out of sight below the horizon.

  “The wolf kill!” she fairly shouted. “They’re sharing the wolf kill.”

  Jumping to her feet, she lined up the spot where they had disappeared with a patch of brown lichens in the distance, and ran with joy along the invisible line. When she had gone a quarter of a mile, she stopped and looked back. The endless tundra rolled around her and she could not tell which frost heave was which.

  “Oh, no!” she cried. She turned around and laboriously searched out the plants crushed by her feet. Near a pool she lost all sight of her steps and then with relief recognized an empty lemming nest, a round ball of grass that she had kicked open. She pounced on it, saw a flower she had trampled, and ran up the heave to it. From the top she looked across the distance to her own precious house.

  She reminded herself not to be so careless again. “One can get lost out here,” she said aloud.

  Miyax flopped down in the grass to rest. Her hand touched a patch of Arctic peas. They were tiny but numerous; she took off her boot and then her sock, and filled its toe with the vegetables. When all were harvested, she swung the sock over her shoulder and, striding joyously, rounded her pond and plunked the peas in her pot. She rolled them around with her fingers and they rattled musically. She rolled them again and made up words to fit their rhythm:

  Peas that go tink, peas that go tot,

  Peas that will never grow outside my pot.

  The puppies yapped and Silver ran out across the tundra. She leaped with grace, her fur gleaming like metal; then she swept into a dip in the landscape and vanished. Up from the horizon rose the jaegers, announcing that Silver had gone to the kill. Clutching the cooking pot to her breast, Miyax excitedly waited to see her bring back meat for the pups.

  The jaegers circled, the longspurs tumbled on their wings, and at last Silver came home. Her mouth was empty.

  “I just don’t understand,” she said to the pups. “What is keeping you alive?” Putting down her pot, she went to her lookout to try to solve the riddle.

  Silver came up the long slope, gave the grunt-whine that summoned the pups, and Kapu ran to meet her. She pulled back her lips in a smile and nosed him affectionately. Then Kapu stuck his nose in the corner of her mouth. Silver arched her back, her neck rippled, and she choked up a big mound of meat. Kapu set upon it with a snarl.

  “So that’s it!” said Miyax. “The meat’s in the belly-basket. Now what do I do?”

  Kapu let Sister share the meal with him, but not Zing, Zat, and Zit—as Miyax had dubbed the three tawny pups who had little personality as yet. Zing rushed over to the resting Silver and cuddled up against her. He rammed his nose against her teats and taking one in his mouth, ravenously nursed. Silver tolerated this for a moment, then growled. He did not let go and she snapped at him. He pulled away, but when she stretched out he dove back into her belly fur again. With a loud bark she rolled onto her stomach and cut off her milk from him. Zing got up, walked over to Amaroq, and stuck his nose in the corner of his mouth. Amaroq regurgitated food.

  The secret of the fat pups was out. They were
being weaned from mother’s milk to well-chewed and partially digested food.

  They might eat food from the belly-basket for weeks before they were brought chunks of meat that Miyax could share, and so she went out into the grasses again to look for buntings. Soon Silver and Nails trotted off in the direction of the kill. Having fed the puppies, they were now feeding themselves. Miyax cautiously peered around the heave. Jello had not gone with them. Yet he had been to the kill. He would have food in his belly-basket.

  When the jaegers arose into the air she picked up the pot and climbed once again to the top of her frost heave. Getting to her hands and knees, she gave the grunt-whine call. “Look at me. I’m nice,” it said.

  Jello strode toward her. So pushed around was he by Silver, so respectful of Amaroq and even Nails, that he was excited by a voice more humble than his own. He even lifted his tail and head higher than Miyax had ever seen him do, and, acting like the boss wolf, loped up her frost heave. Curious Kapu trotted behind.

  As Miyax scurried to meet Jello, he hesitated, growled softly, and urinated. “Don’t be scared,” she said and whimpered. He circled closer. Quickly rising to her knees, grunting the note of friendship, she slipped her hand over his head and clasped the top of his nose firmly in her fingers.

  “I’m boss,” she said as his tail and head went down in deference to the symbol of leadership. She started to slip her hand into the corner of his mouth, but he jerked away. Then Kapu, as if he understood what Miyax wanted, swept up to Jello and nuzzled his mouth. Jello heaved, opened his jaws, and deposited food on the ground.

  “I’ll live! I’ll live!” Miyax cried jubilantly as Jello turned, put his tail between his legs, and raced back to the other pups. Kapu sat down and watched with wrinkled forehead as she scooped the meat into the pot. When she had retrieved every morsel, she gently closed her lips on the bridge of his nose. His tail wagged respectfully and he gazed softly into her eyes.

  “Kapu,” she whispered. “We Eskimos have joking partners—people to have fun with—and serious partners—people to work and think with. You and I are both. We are joking-serious partners.” He wagged his tail excitedly and blinked. “And that’s the best of all.” She reached out to hug him, for his eyes were mellow and his fuzz irresistible. But he was like water and slipped through her hands.

  On two knees and one hand, holding the pot with the other, Miyax hobbled toward her camp. Kapu bit her heel softly and she glanced over her shoulder. His head was cocked and his tail swished slowly.

  “What are you saying now?” she asked. He gave the grunt-whine for attention.

  Of course, she was his big sister and he wanted to play. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a mitten and before she could flash it in front of his nose, he had leaped, caught it, and was pulling and shaking her whole arm and torso with incredible strength.

  Miyax let go lest she spill her meat, and Kapu rolled head over heels into the lichens. Taking a firm grip on the mitten, he flattened his ears in spirited fellowship, dashed down the slope and up to his den. There he turned to see if she was following.

  “Bring back my mitten,” she called. “I need it.” He flashed the wolf smile of apology, shook the mitten, and romped into the midst of his other brothers.

  Kapu scratched a wide swath on the ground with his hind feet. The three tawny pups sniffed the mark and Zit sat down before it. Bold Kapu had written his signature and it was deep and impressive. Miyax wondered if the mitten victory was responsible. It was quite a trophy to win.

  Placing her pot by her fireplace, she walked out on the tundra and gathered dry grass and lichens in her sock, for there was, of course, no wood to burn. Although caribou droppings were a better fuel, she was too fearful of getting lost to hunt them. Piling the grass and lichens in the center of the stones, she went into her house, took a small cookie tin from her pack, and removed one precious match. Then she lit the tinder.

  The grass burst into flame and the lichens smoldered slowly, giving her time to dig the peat that the dead grasses had laid down for thousands and thousands of years. Gradually the peat glowed, the water boiled, and an hour later Miyax had a pot of caribou stew.

  “At last!” she said. On it floated great chunks of golden grease, more delicious than the butter from the gussak store. She put a savory bite in her mouth, sucked the juices, then chewed a long time before she swallowed. She must not eat too fast or too much. Kapugen had said that an old lady, rescued from the snow after weeks of starvation, so stuffed herself that she died the next day.

  Munching another bite, she went out to the grass clump to check on buntings, and a long time later returned to eat two more chunks of caribou. The rest, though she longed for it, she stored inside her house. Then she patted her stomach and told it to wait.

  For the first time in days she could think of something other than food. Her mind turned to the problem of which direction was north and in which direction lay the town of Point Hope. The dips and heaves of the tundra spread out all around her and still looked the same in every direction.

  “Oh, ho!” she said aloud. “More lichens grow on one side of the frost heaves than on the other.” She pondered this, as well as the oblong shape of her pond, which was caused by the flow of the ice as it moved with the wind. But did the wind come down from the north or out of the west on the North Slope of Alaska? She did not know. Next, she noted that the grasses grew in different spots than the mosses, and the more she studied, the more the face of the tundra emerged; a face that could tell her which way was north, if she had listened more carefully to Kapugen.

  Her legs began to buckle and her body swayed. She crumpled to her knees, for the food was making her both dizzy and sleepy. She staggered into her fur-carpeted house and lay down.

  Miyax’s eyelids fluttered; the black lashes parted, then framed her wide eyes like ferns around a pool. She had eaten, slept for many hours; and the dull, tired feeling of starvation was gone. She felt bright and very much alive.

  Rolling to her stomach, she propped herself on her elbows, and reached into her pot to eat. She ate a lot. The food in the pot lowered drastically. When but two meals remained, she made up her mind to tell Amaroq she wanted a whole shank of caribou. Wolves did bring food to their dens. Kapugen had seen them walk long miles in spring, with legs and ribs for the mothers who stayed in the ground with their pups for almost ten days after birth.

  Well, she had no puppies to induce Amaroq to feed her, so she pondered again. Kapugen had once told her of a wolf who was wounded by the hoofs of a caribou. He limped to a rock cave and lay down to recover. Every night his leader trotted over the snow, bringing him meat until he was well and could rejoin the pack.

  Miyax did not want to suffer a wound, but it seemed to her that in order to be fed by wolves one had to be helpless.

  “If that’s the case,” she said to herself, “I should be buried in food. I’m helpless enough. I cannot fell a caribou or catch a bird. And I’m lost, besides.” She thrust her head out the door.

  “Amaroq, I’m helpless,” she cried. The chilly air tingled her nose and she noticed that the cotton grasses by the pond were seeding out into white puffs. This was worrisome, for they marked the coming of autumn, the snows, and the white-outs. White-outs could be dangerous. When the cotton grass heads were gone, the winds would lift the snow from the ground to the air and she would not be able to see her feet. She would be imprisoned wherever she stood . . . maybe for days . . . maybe till death.

  Amaroq howled the long note to assemble. Silver and Nails barked a brief “Coming,” and it was the beginning of a new day for Miyax and the wolves. Although the clocks in Barrow would say it was time to get ready for bed, she was getting up, for she was on wolf time. Since there was no darkness to hamper her vision, night was as good a time to work as day, and much better if you were a wolf girl. Rehearsing whimpers and groveling positions as she climbed to her lookout, she got ready to tell Amaroq how helpless she was in his own language.

>   He was awake, lying on his side, watching Sister’s paw twitch as she slept. He got up and licked the restless sleeper as if to say “All’s well.” The paw relaxed.

  Miyax whimpered and twisted her head appealingly. Amaroq shot her a glance and wagged his tail as if she had said “Hello,” not “I’m helpless.”

  Suddenly his head lifted, his ears went up, and Amaroq sniffed the wind. Miyax sniffed the wind and smelled nothing, although Amaroq was on his feet now, electric with the airborne message. He snapped his hunters to attention and led them down the slope and off across the tundra. Jello stayed home with the pups.

  The pack moved in single file almost to the horizon, then swerved and came back. Shading her eyes, Miyax finally saw what the wind had told Amaroq. A herd of caribou was passing through. She held her breath as the hunters sped toward a large buck. The animal opened his stride and gracefully gained ground. He could so easily outrun the wolves that Amaroq let him go and trotted toward another. This one, too, outdistanced the pack and Amaroq swerved and tested another. Just as Miyax was wondering how the wolves ever caught anything, Amaroq put on full speed and bore down on a third.

  This animal could not outrun him, and when Amaroq attacked he turned and struck with his powerful hoofs. Like a bouncing ball the leader sprang away. Nails and Silver fanned out to either side of the beast, then veered and closed in. The caribou bellowed, pressed back his ears, zigzagged over a frost heave, and disappeared from sight.

  “They’re chasing the weakest,” Miyax said in astonishment. “It’s just like Kapugen said—wolves take the old and sick.”

  She looked from the empty tundra to the busy den site. Kapu was staring at her, his eyes narrowed, his ears thrown forward aggressively.